


endymion's knight

by mushydesserts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Accidental Plot, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Never Met, Angst, Dreamscapes, M/M, Mild Horror, Mythology - Freeform, Post-Apocalypse, Romance, an excuse for wacky scenery, lowkey an inception au, lowkey omenverse au, or have they?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2018-12-10 07:46:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11687199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushydesserts/pseuds/mushydesserts
Summary: Prompto hasn't been afraid of fairy monsters under the bed for years now. There are other ghosts that come for him in the night, and those ones, those ones are real.In the end, when the Nightmare King comes for Prompto, he comes as a young man with pitch hair and white skin. (Kinkmeme fill, WIP.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3892.html?thread=5167156), though it's uh, it's gone and done some weird stuff on its own now, too. 
> 
> I'm... I'm very sorry.

 

i.

When he was growing up, Prompto's mother and father had told him stories about the Nightmare King.

All children in Lucis heard those stories. They were supposed to keep the young ones in line. Countless gleeful brother and sisters passed them on around the campfire, when they themselves outgrew their terror. "Careful you behave, or the Nightmare King will come," the tale went.

> _Careful you behave, or the Nightmare King will come. Formless and dark, leaving no mark, with eyes like glowing coals. Careful you listen, careful, behave. Early you to sleep, dear, or you'll dream in the Nightmare King's grave._

Prompto had been easily frightened as a child, and gods knew he'd done his chores and eaten his vegetables and went to bed exactly on time for years, driven by that spectre, until his parents had been vaguely sorry for telling him about it in the first place. "Prompto, sweet, it's just a story," he remembers his mother telling him, cool hand on his forehead when he couldn't sleep. "You don't know that," he'd quavered, and she'd sighed and smiled, and lay down beside him to soothe him to rest.

That had been years ago. Before the Imperials came.

Living outside the city walls hadn't spared the Argentums in the end. Prompto hasn't been afraid of fairy monsters under the bed for years now. There are other ghosts that come for him in the night, and those ones, those ones are real.

In the end, when the Nightmare King comes for Prompto, he comes as a young man with pitch hair and white skin.

Black tattered robes, and blue petals, and the scent of lightning — those are what Prompto will remember about him.

 

 

ii.

He thinks it's a dog, at first.

It patters on all fours through the snowscape before him, small and white, too distant to clearly see. The tracks it leaves are small, shallow, vanishing. Something about the figure feels familiar to Prompto, but he can't remember how.

"Wait," he calls, the snow sucking at his feet, at his boots. (He's never seen snow, not like this. Not on the sun-hot plains of Duscae where he grew up. Not outside of the old movies, grainy black-and-white cotton floating fake through the air; never seen drifts that could swallow a man whole. He doesn't know why he sees it now.) "Wait!" He tries to follow, but the snow is heavy, wet, burning through his clothes, the clothes of a boy he's never met, black and grey and stiff like steel, edges digging into his skin. The sky above is grey like smoke, ash falling around him, choking. He reaches out.

The tiny figure turns, far away, and looks at him. He sees it through the swirling white. Its eyes are —

its eyes

black and black and red and black

flashing three-eyed glowing gems

— the figure turns away and leaps, a strange quick movement, not at all like a dog's. It vanishes, leaving a blue imprint in the space it had stood. Prompto halts. As he watches, the blue fades, too.

There is a deep metal roaring from somewhere under the ground. Like engines, like fire, like a furnace churning, and a faint ache from somewhere under the skin on Prompto's wrist. The snow seems endless, a blur. He drops, weary. He feels the cold bite into his knees.

_What's that?_ a voice whispers, close on to Prompto's neck. _Can't just stop halfway._

Prompto looks up.

Prompto wakes up.

 

 

iii.

Prompto shuts the door of the pickup truck, breathing in, drawing exhaust and dust deep. He pulls the rag higher up over his nose and mouth, squints at the sun and the oncoming storm. He shakes his head. He goes around back through the alley, between the chainlink fence and the low building.

Hammerhead always looks a little more run-down every time Prompto visits, roads more full of gravel, weeds taller and piles of brick finer. It's probably his imagination, he knows, mind filling in the rust-red dirt and brilliant blue skies from his memories of the better days. Hammerhead hasn't changed in years. It's familiar, scratchy and rough and old and comforting, even shabby and dull as it is now; Prompto always feels safe here, like he's come home to a place he's never really lived.

The old man still has the garage door open a crack when he rounds the corner, old plastic covers scratched up cloudy beyond recognition. They're asking for grit in the machines in this weather, but Prompto knows the owners have long stopped caring. They'll pull the door down when they're ready.

Said old man is working on something now, just inside, under the yellow lights, a set of wrenches laid out on the grease-stained floor. His hair is silver-grey, ratty jacket vivid like paint splatters. He spits a screw out from between his teeth and tugs his hat low as Prompto approaches.

"What've you got there?" he grunts.

Prompto swings the hunk of metal he's been hauling around up to the workbench, wincing at the weight. "Just some junk I picked up in the parking spot by Cauthess. Think there's a couple engine bits that aren't in too bad of a shape, so I thought I could run it by you guys," he says, setting it down carefully.

The man glances at it, nods. "Cindy'll take a look. Just leave it there."

"Thanks, Cid." Prompto rolls his shoulder, trying to loosen it up before the cramps set in. He cranes his neck, looking around the garage. "How's the bike?"

"Shapin' up," Cid says, not even looking up. "Y'can stop askin', boy. Everybody 'round these parts knows you got an eye on her."

Prompto grins and ducks, sheepish. There's no rushing the Aurums, that's for sure. "All right. Okay." He rubs his neck. "Call me soon as she's done?"

"Wouldn't dream of doin' anythin' else," Cid teases. It's good-natured, Prompto knows, and he feels a rush of gratitude for the people around here who've done their best to make him welcome.

"All right. Be back in a week, hey?" Prompto dances backwards, towards the door.

Cid waves. "Feed yerself, ya hear?" he calls. Prompto salutes as he slips outside.

 

As soon as the caravan door bangs shut behind him, Prompto yanks off his gloves.

He stands for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. The space is small, stuffy, but cozy, the built-in furniture all shades of amber in the shadows. He unwinds the rag from around his face, shakes it out and hangs it up. He flicks on the light.

He walks over to the kitchenette and puts on the dented tin kettle, letting it slosh and settle on the stove. He wipes his hands on his trousers, yawning, and glances at the clock on the wall in the slanting sunset glow. Guess rinsing out the water tanks will have to wait for another day.

He considers cooking, but he's got nothing in the fridge but pickled beets and frozen daggerquill breasts. He's not really in the mood for mac n' cheese, either. So... cereal for dinner again? Probably. That's one good thing about living alone: nobody to judge.

Except.

He turns reluctantly away from the stove.

The young man sitting at his window seat looks up, expression bored.

"Just gonna make yourself at home, huh?" Prompto says.

The man tilts his head, puzzled. "You're different," he says slowly, hair ink-dark against the fading light. "This isn't where I expected to find you."

"Where did you expect to find me?" Prompto sighs. "And who's _I?_ "

"I don't know." The man looks at him curiously, and Prompto's not sure which question he meant to answer. Then he says, "Not here."

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

iv.

Prompto doesn't recognize this place.

The deserted hallways are dim and grand, grander than anywhere he's been since he was a child, marble pillars rising up on either side, soaring windows letting in a frosty blue light. The carpet beneath his feet is rich, blood red — faded and worn, but still carrying the lingering bright hue, seeping into black. Velvet drapes hang half-fallen from their rods, moth-eaten and swaying in a sourceless breeze. His feet stir up dust, particles strangely black and heavy, skittering across stone.

He wanders, feeling hopelessly small here, a pebble rattling in the bottom of a tin crate. He could be circling around without knowing it, blind within the maze of walls. When he looks behind him, the corridors seem to dissolve into mist, a dark blur in his vision. Ahead, the lines crystallize, vivid as he goes. He thinks, this is what it must be like to have been swallowed: by the towering creatures down in the valley; by the boarded-up mine tunnels scattered throughout Leide; by the lost old castles up in Cavaugh.

There is a light at the end of the hall. He wanders cautiously towards it.

A wide window, he sees, light haze beyond. The sky?

At first it feels like he's not making any progress, the distance between him and the glass stretching with every step. Slowly, though, the blue light skims his toes, and then falls across his shins. He steps in to greet it.

He looks out the window and sucks in a breath.

A crumbling city stretches out beneath him. The streets are dark and silent far below, seared and full of jagged concrete, shattered rebar, broken pipes leaking brown sludge. Flickering old signs glimmer through the thick smog rising from the sinkholes in the pavement; crushed cars collect in haphazard piles at intersections, traffic lights uselessly sparking red, green, red again. White and gold banners blow from lamp posts, burnt rags, like forgotten signals of surrender.

Prompto presses his hands to the cold glass, and then his cheek, peering down at the drop. He's never seen so many... so many _buildings._ Like the bombed-out settlements in the north of Duscae, but all clustered, smashed together. Like a scrapyard. What about the _people?_ Where did the people...

Prompto finally realizes where he is.

There are footsteps behind him. It takes a moment for him to find words.

"My mother grew up here," Prompto says.

The figure in the shadows behind him shifts. "Mother?" The voice is mild, puzzled.

"Yeah. In the Crown City." Prompto looks up, exhales. "She moved back out when she finished school. Her parents had a ranch in the slough..." Prompto trails off.

The figure steps up beside him. Prompto dares to look.

The young man is about his height, he sees now. Slender, profile pale and unlined, nose pointed and mouth narrow, eyes dark. He wears black robes with thin gold ornaments that clatter whenever he moves, and they hang off him like shadows, abbreviated, heavy.

The young man speaks. "Have you been here before?"

Prompto shakes his head, looks back out the window. "Once. When I was really small. Just a kid." He doesn't remember it very well — only that the streets had been packed, bustling, traffic noise overwhelming, neon billboards and streetlights towering above as he'd held his mother's hand. He'd been happy to go home where he could see the horizon, he recalls.

"It didn't look like this," the other man guesses, light laugh.

Prompto looks down again, morbid fascination and awe warring with the distant dread in his chest. "I liked it better then," he says.

The man breathes, fog against cold glass. "Me too," he says.

 

 

v.

The fiery river rages, hot mountain wind offering no relief. Brilliant shards of crystal wavering in the heat shield him from the sun, from the burning orange sky above, speckled with churning gold. Prompto wipes sweat from his brows; the sand beneath his feet shifts, slope impossible to traverse. Searing bits of tar stick to his skin, and he slips. His fingers scrabble against rock. He grabs futilely at a spray of grass —

— stalks of brilliant green waving, swaying in the fields, far as the eye can see, one movement of emerald and pine and chartreuse-syrup-yellow rolling beneath azure —

— dry hay, hot underneath his palms, and it loosens and he's falling —

— through emptiness, stone whirling by, black iron darkness, deep vibration in the air and sweat hissing as it hits the metal plates, points of red glow close, too close, nobody here —

— _Weren't you here?_

Prompto scrambles to his feet. "No," he says shakily. "I wasn't. That wasn't me."

The great blade of a daemon swings at his head, molten metal screaming through the air. A vault door creaks open. He's falling through the sky, clouds trailing from his sword —

Prompto staggers. His arms feel oddly light, empty.

_Where were you?_

Prompto doesn't know how to answer.

 

 

vi.

Prompto strolls the streets of the drowned city. His feet don't touch the ground.

He can't see the sky above. There is only water in the distance, rising up, walls of sea glimmering like a tidal wave forever suspended, silent and shadowed, the sun a weak beam beyond. The air is heavy, undisturbed, stifling. He feels like he's in one of those tiny glass spheres with the figurines inside, glitter that whips up into a storm when you shake it between your palms.

He sees stone archways, stairs, thin bridges of shattered cobblestone; black chain rails and twisted lamp posts, fountains submerged, flowerpots crushed like scarlet gravel strewn with pink petals. The storefront windows are oil-slick glass, burnt out film. Prompto can't see any reflections. A shallow tide laps beneath his feet, covering the rubble with inches of water, burst-gutter drips and puddles. There is nobody around. Only Prompto, his steps not quite matching the prints he leaves.

In front of him, the abandoned streets open up into an empty town square. As he emerges, he sees that the slanted ground is peppered with the pockmarks of old gunfire, stone marred with black char, half-washed away by the sea.

The black-haired man sits at the edge of it, dangling a foot off the side of the drop beyond. As Prompto approaches, he draws up his knee and stands. Wet papers are scattered around him on the ground, Prompto sees — blank white pages, torn and soaked through. The man does not turn around.

Prompto licks his lips and speaks first. "What are you looking for?"

He raises his head, scans the horizon.

"Her," he says.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

vii.

There's the barking again.

Prompto twists, looking around for the source. For a moment all he sees is shadowed rock face, his eyes darting between the bluffs. There are the remnants of a wall blocking off what might have been an old dam at the end of the enclosed clearing, latticework of metal beams exposed to air. _Bad place to be trapped with a monster_ , he thinks, for no reason that comes to him, but he is minutely relieved when nothing looms out of the corners at him.

The barking echoes through the valley, carried on a draft of fresh air. It sounds plaintive and lost and familiar.

_"Pryna!"_

The faint call comes from a different direction, and Prompto looks behind him, seeing nothing.

The answering bark is nearer. Prompto stays rooted to the spot, waiting to see which approaching voice will manifest first.

He is rewarded when a white snout rounds the corner ahead of him, sniffing cautiously. It is followed by the rest of the dog, meandering with its nose to the ground.

"Hey there," Prompto says softly as it draws haltingly near. He crouches as it sidles close, tail low, and it nuzzles the palm of his hand. This close, he sees it has blue eyes, eyes like ice, clear with grey markings. It laps at his fist, a warm flick of damp on his knuckles.

_"Pryna!"_

It raises its head, ears perking. It pushes past his hand. Prompto lowers his arm.

As Prompto watches, it pads by him, fur brushing his shin, tail wagging. Prompto wipes his hand off on his trousers and, seeing no better way to find a way out, follows it.

As he rounds the corner, the bluffs open up, sun low in his eyes, and Prompto feels the air leave his lungs.

The scenery is familiar, he realizes, but he's never seen it quite like this.

The stone stretches out before him, arcing up towards the heavens in a vast bridge. It joins other formations, the stone arches leaping like waves, forever roiling, whipped up from the earth when the meteor had landed an age ago. He's high up, now, the stone solid beneath his feet but the world seeming to sway below him, landscape like a mottled quilt of mud and moss green far, far below. The clouds around him seem to join to the stone. Prompto knows the rock formation, of course. Everybody does. But hadn't known what'd they look like from above.

The dog runs ahead onto the stone arch ahead. The figure standing on it turns, silhouetted, and kneels to scratch behind its ears.

Prompto follows, finding his footing where the dog had tread.

The man is clad in a simple black jacket today, short sleeves, arms bare, black boots halfway up his shin. Smooth-faced and shock of messy hair, he looks younger, somehow. A boy, almost. Maybe a little younger than Prompto. He looks up when Prompto nears, flash of bright blue eyes, beaming.

"Thanks for finding my dog," he says amicably, fingers buried in the white fur under its neck.

"It's you again," Prompto says.

The man's hand drops. "People don't usually remember me."

Prompto doesn't know what to say to that. _Honestly? Don't really know if that makes you following me around better or worse,_ he might joke, but somehow it doesn't come to his mind to tease.

The dog barks once, twice, and then takes off across the bridge. Seeing Prompto's look, the man laughs.

"Let her go on ahead, she'll come back." He stands, hands in his pockets. "What's your name?"

Prompto opens his mouth. "Prompto," he says. It doesn't occur to him to ask for a name in return. "How do you keep finding me if you don't know my name?" This question doesn't make any sense at all, but it's the closest Prompto can get to articulating the whole _what is this what's going on_ that's swimming through his mind, and it makes a certain kind of sense, when he looks at it that way.

The man nods in the direction of the white dog. "I don't. She does. I just follow."

Prompto frowns.

If the man — the boy — hadn't been dressed like he is today, Prompto might not have dared to ask. But Prompto looks at him, at his cargo pants and red-soled fishing boots, and feels the words coming out of his mouth before he decides to let them go.

"You aren't telling me you're _lost,"_ he says.

The man flushes with surprise. "'Course not," he says, mock-offended. "I know where we are." He gestures out at the grand view before them, a little flourish that Prompto suspects is exaggerated for sarcasm. "Been here a thousand times."

The man doesn't quite come off as bored despite his words. There's just a tad too much awe in his voice, and, Prompto thinks, he might be just a tad too proud of himself. Prompto isn't sure who's responsible for their choice of meeting place right now, but _he_ sure isn't here often.

Still, something about it makes Prompto relax slightly. "Same here," he says. "Never from, uh... never from quite so high up, though." Prompto toes a pebble, and it flips over with a scritching sound. He's not sure whether the predictability and solidity of the motion reassures him or heightens his unease; the ground beneath him seems real, yes, but if so, so is the drop a mere fifteen feet away.

The man seems to sense his hesitation and laughs. "Ah, don't worry. It's not gonna hurt you." He shrugs a shoulder. "You'll get down the same way you got up."

 _What way is that?_ seems a futile question. Prompto swallows instead and blinks into the clear blue, across the land, shielding his eyes from the glare.

The view is breathtaking. The sun glances across mountain peaks Prompto hadn't even known existed, drawing deep blue shadows across the valleys, painting the meadows gold, glimmering on the ridges of the Disc. Everything seems to sparkle from so far away, grit and scars all but invisible. Prompto wishes he had his camera — but then he suspects he could expend rolls and rolls of film without capturing this.

"So," Prompto says. "So you're telling me you've been up here?" He pictures the lone figure walking his dog across the landscape, like gods before humans came to Eos. A god, he figures, wouldn't know what it was like to fall. Then again, maybe a god wouldn't wear cargo pants.

"You're telling me you haven't?" The man looks around. "People get up here, don't they?"

"Not without a death wish, they don't," Prompto says, grimacing. He'd heard that someone had managed to climb halfway up one above Saxham on chocoback before the bird — understanding, unlike its rider, that it _didn't_ fly — had lost its nerve and left them stranded. No word on how long it took the rescue crews to get them down.

The man scratches his head. "No kidding," he says. He sounds sheepish. "Hey, listen, I swear this isn't a _Grim Reaper, I offer myself_ sort of thing. I just thought it was nice up here." He waves. "I mean, she agrees, anyway."

Somewhere ahead, the dog barks. _She,_ Prompto thinks. _Pryna._ "Can't say you're wrong," Prompto exhales. The air feels richer up here — or whatever it is that's filling his lungs does.

The man glances at him sideways, amused. "Ever wanted to take a walk across these?" He gestures at the stone loops before them. "Would make a pretty wild jogging route," he adds.

Prompto returns the glance warily. "Can't say I've ever had the chance to think about it," he says. Some people dreamt of flying, he supposes. Prompto's happy just to run, speed slipping adrenaline into his veins.

The man grins. "Well, first time for everything," he says. And with that, he strolls off ahead.

Prompto watches him step onto the paths crossing the heavens, a tiny shadowed figure dwarfed by the immensity of the structures, nothing below the rock but miles of air. Prompto tries to turn away, but finds himself transfixed. He shifts his feet and hears the muted scrape of gravel echo distantly, rough under his boot. His heart hammers with the thrill of being so high up, a danger that's heady despite its falsity.

The man turns and cocks his head, halting for a second, then turns around and continues at a leisurely pace behind the white four-legged figure. "C'mon. Once in a lifetime opportunity. It'd be a shame to waste the view," he calls, waving a hand over his shoulder as he walks away.

Prompto swallows. He takes a deep breath, willing his giddy heart to slow, then takes a cautious step onto the arch, and then another.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

viii.

The man slides into the seat across from him in the booth, looking faintly irritated.

The honking of cars in the parking lot makes a sort of muffled symphony in greeting. The radio on the counter is playing soft rock, the fans are stirring the hot summer air, and a little girl is wheedling her mother into buying her an ice cream over at the cash.

"Your Majesty," Prompto greets, and the man frowns, looking sort of uncomfortable.

"Prompto," he acknowledges, sounding resigned.

"Fancy seeing you here," Prompto adds. He can't help it, and his grin widens at the way the man's expression sours. Prompto hides behind his milkshake, relishing his slurp for as long as he can.

It isn't too difficult to imagine why. The place — from the tables and stools, to the black-and-white checkered floor, to the jukebox in the corner, to the leering chipped-paint crow mascot on the bench outside — is a nearly exact replica of a diner near where Prompto had lived growing up. He remembers eating breakfast here with his parents, soft-boiled eggs and crispy sizzling bacon and buttery toast with a side of greasy Leiden potato hash. He always got a milkshake too, if he'd been good. It's a humble spot, but one full of good memories — uneventful, but personal.

Probably not where a dream-skipping phantom is used to hanging out.

Prompto has seen him a few times that he recalls since that last stroll across the sky. He seems older on some days, younger on others, but always close to Prompto's age, somewhere between twenty and thirty. Prompto assumes that's a god thing.

Not that the man is a god. Prompto had asked once, deadpan, calling him _oh hallowed one_ over popsicles as they dangled their feet through the beams of a bridge spanning a bright-lit river of mist —

"You're a god, right?" Prompto had said, way braver than he should have been before any Being Of Old. Dreams gave him a feeling of security, maybe, a heightened sense of daring.

The man had snorted. "Not even close," he'd said. "I'm like you. I sleep. I dream."

"So you're sleeping now?"

"Yeah."

Prompto had pondered this. "What do I call you?"

The man had gnawed on his popsicle in a very unkingly fashion, and then said snidely, "Your Majesty'll do."

Prompto had shrugged and gone with it. _Nightmare King,_ he'd thought, and then figured that none of this really seemed like a nightmare, honestly. _Dream King._ Your Majesty.

"You in the mood to eat something, Your Majesty?"

"What're we having?" He doesn't usually eat, apparently. He'll try food if it's put in front of him, but Prompto's always provided the snacks so far, from whatever'd been on hand.

"Chili bread bowl," Prompto says with a relish, and waves the plate in front of the man's face, and the king wrinkles his nose and leans back. The cheese is just now melting, and the sharp, spicy scent makes Prompto's mouth water. "Something against tomatoes, Your Majesty?"

"Beans," the man says, dead serious, and Prompto snickers.

Prompto retrieves his plate and digs in with his spoon. It's exactly as good as he remembers it, and the man folds his arms. Prompto chews thoughtfully, burst of sweet pepper stinging his throat, and swallows.

"Try their sweet potato pie," Prompto suggests.

The king looks at him askance.

"Trust me, it's good," Prompto insists. "Or you could just sit there and watch me eat, I guess."

The king slides out suspiciously and approaches the serving counter. Prompto hides a smile.

When the king returns with his tray, Prompto thinks very hard about the last time he had the pie, about the crumbling butter crust and the warm marshmallow topping crisped just right, the gooey insides of the pastry melting and sticking to the fork. The king prods at the dish, then slices off a small bite.

The lights in the diner are off, but everything is lit up bright in the midday sun refracted off the pavement outside, casting a glow across the kaleidoscope metal tabletops and the shiny bar stools. The activity around them carries on in a slow blur of background motion that neither notices them nor cares about them. The king chews.

He swallows, wipes his mouth as Prompto watches. "It's pretty good," he says.

"You've never had it before?" A travesty, as the king shakes his head. "Dude, that's a shame." Prompto thinks about it, about whether the king only eats whatever's served to him in dreams, no choice in menu of his own. Can he conjure his own memories of dishes? Seems like it'd be a bad deal, being a Dream King who can't cook. "I bet you could write down the recipe."

The king looks very, very sorry for a second, and Prompto feels like apologizing, though he's not sure what for.

"You can't write down anything in a dream," the king says.

"Uh," Prompto says. Is that really — he frowns, looks around for a scrap of paper. Maybe one of those crayons the kids use to scribble on their placemats. It's his dream, surely he could — 

"I've tried. I just forget, when I move on," the king interrupts. Prompto halts in his efforts, drops his hands.

"Well, I mean, you could always come back here, I guess," Prompto says lamely.

The king scrapes his fork along the ceramic of his plate. "It's your diner," he says curiously.

"Now it's yours too," Prompto says, and he doubts the king needs an invitation to go anywhere, really, but the king smiles nonetheless, and Prompto feels a warmth in his stomach, meal settling in pleasantly, substantial, almost real, and something fluttering just above.

 

 

ix.

Prompto sees him more now.

Prompto isn't sure whether this means he's visiting more often, or whether Prompto's just noticing it more. Sometimes Prompto's just going about his business when it happens, driving his pickup through an abandoned checkpoint in the murky sun of Cleigne, or chatting with the hunters at the trading posts, and there's a shape of a man in the dust on the horizon, or the faraway bark of a dog catching his ear. Sometimes the man drops by and says _hey_ like they're neighbors, and Prompto asks him _what's up,_ and the man shrugs and says _not much_ and asks what Prompto's doing, and Prompto will explain: cleaning out a monster carcass from a hunt, or salvaging scrap from the roadsides, or just driving out aimlessly, trying to find the edges of the map.

"Is that dangerous?" the king had said hesitantly, when he'd heard about Prompto wandering alone.

"I dunno. You tell me," Prompto had said, and the king had opened his mouth, about to ask something further, before shutting it again.

Prompto revisits places for the most part, a diner here or there, the top of some old water tower with a wind vane on the top, the plateau he used to go up on to photograph the sunsets and thunderstorms rolling in over Duscae. Sometimes the landscapes are cobbled-together mazes, familiar to him, but not laid out in any way he can explain. Sometimes they're entirely new.

They've been new more often since that first one, since the snow field. He's wondered about that, and about the smashed cities and the — the other places. Prompto wonders if maybe he's all dreamed out, if that little slice of Hammerhead was all the Dream King had been able to stomach before turning Prompto loose somewhere more fantastical. The thought causes some indignance — sure, it's not much, but it's still _home,_ and Prompto's sorry that he doesn't have the mental travelogue of an immortal demigod.

Prompto's not sure what exactly the king wants with him, anyways, and why he's seeing him now. But whenever he tries to ask, the question that rises up on his tongue is instead _where were you before,_ and Prompto knows the man will just give him that measured look again, the one that says _who cares?_ or _I don't need to tell you anything,_ or maybe, _I don't know._ So Prompto just lets him be.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

x.

Another one that isn't his.

He's home. Or he thinks he is. But the caravan is stifling, walls hot to the touch when he raises his knuckles to them, and though he recognizes the setting he knows something is wrong — with a jolt he realizes that this isn't his caravan.

He's not sure what gives it away. It feels familiar, all of it, false oak panelling and sparse fixed-frame furniture and bent metal-wool vents, but the place is empty, just moved in, countertops clear of the usual clutter, shelves free of their lint and cobwebs. Nothing he can see marks it as his or as anyone else's. There's nothing outside of the windows beyond the curtains, the blackness beyond speaking of nighttime, but one of unnatural quiet, not even the chirping of bugs to break the dark veil.

There's a door at the end of the compartment, the faint light set above it flickering with tiny black moths flitting in the gloom. Something about it strikes him as foreboding.

There's a rap on the other side of it.

He reaches out to touch the handle. The metal is warm beneath his fingers.

He turns it. The floor rocks beneath him, and light and sound rush back —

It leads into a train. A dining car, late afternoon, full of tables and benches and lined with a counter, blinding and airy and empty.

The warped air hits him first like a wave. Stepping into the compartment is like stepping into an oven, and if he'd thought the caravan was suffocating, the air here is scorching — thick like syrup on the inhale, sweat beading on the back of his neck, wetting his eyelashes, making his vision blur. None of it thaws the deep chill that starts in his bones now, raising the hairs on his arms. Everything is muffled, and there's buzzing in his mind, the slick countertops and amber glasses shattering the sun into seeping blooms, everything frozen in time, even the dust in the beams of light.

The floor shivers as if the train is rocketing along, carving a path through an unseen countryside. Prompto picks his way down the aisle, through neat padded benches, rows and rows of red seats watching him blankly. The doors are all open, the hollow train stretching on into infinity, a hazy dread waiting for him at the end of it. He turns around, and there's another flimsy sliding door at the end of the compartment, innocuous, pale green with a perfectly round port hole in the center.

 _Run_ , the instinct whispers in his ear.

Prompto takes a step.

He glances for figures in the corner of his vision. There's nothing, and no whine or bark or thump of a tail to lead the way.

The glasses jangle again, the saltshakers in their trays, and the clatter of wheels on rails gives way to a rumble. A jolt has Prompto teetering, weight off-balance over his heels.

The shadow starts at the far end of the train, crawling along the grooved boards of the floors, snuffing out the windows faster than Prompto can track. He takes an involuntary step back, and another. No matter — blackness rushes to meet him as if the train has plunged into a tunnel, like a dive into ice water as the sunlight winks out, the sound of the wheels echoing like a roar, and he scrabbles behind him for the handle on the door, twisting and pushing just in time —

"Highness?" the voice says in a soft tenor.

The door clicks shut behind him in a darkened motel room, heavy tobacco-scented drapes drawn back and murky morning light spilling through.

Prompto stands, dazed and stock-still in the entryway.

There's a television in the corner, dark screen fizzing now on a table covered in dust. A smattering of washed-out paintings sit in stained old frames on the wall, surrounded by armchairs with cracked brown upholstery, a feeble attempt at a homely welcome. Two beds, and that makes him pause: one unmade, sheets rumpled and coverlet thrown back, the other half-hidden behind. There might be a lump under its blankets, but that's not what catches Prompto's eye.

There's someone new.

A man, light hair, sharp jaw just visible in profile as he stands facing the stove in the tiny kitchenette. The kettle's on behind him, and it's just starting to whistle — or maybe that's the man's humming, low and soothing, toneless and sweet. He's cloaked in musty shadows with just the glint of dawn in his hair, movements easy and practiced, a comforting air of routine. Something is cooking, the smell of leather and flour, just slightly off, faintly sour, like the stench of rotting fruit.

When the man turns, Prompto recoils; his eyes are white, glassy where the irises should have been.

"Highness?" the man says again. He reaches out, and Prompto realizes he's blind.

Prompto can't understand the word, can't place the tones through the ringing in his ears. The quiet is jarring, buzzing and screeching of wheels gone now, and he's only now beginning to register the sounds that aren't absorbed by the peeling blue wallpaper and the mouldy worn-patterned carpet beneath him: the radiator humming and rattling faintly, spitting thin cold air over splintering wood trim, the water bubbling low in a heated pot, all familiar sounds, as if he was back in a motel room on the road through Longwythe. But the last time he'd made the trip, he'd been alone. He'd always been alone, hadn't he?

Something is burning. Acrid smoke is filling the room, the man's face pale porcelain edges searing away into ash. When he moves a trail of sparks follow him, white and glimmering purple, bright enough to leave after-images, to turn everything else muddy in his wake. He takes a step towards Prompto, mouth opening, as the kettle begins to scream —

Prompto takes a stumbling step sideways and winds up falling into a crowded subway car in a rush of cold air and scuffed metal and grimy glass. Figures sit and stand and jostle around him, faceless — shades, all translucent, paying him no mind.

Nobody notices him, and he can't seem to notice them either — everything here is indistinct, running together like bland watercolors anywhere he tries to set his eyes. No subway system has run in Lucis for years. Prompto's not been on the Insomnian underground more than once, long ago, and the surroundings here seem no clearer than that memory.

 

(But the man in the motel room — he'd seemed so _vivid._ Close. Familiar. Prompto tries, his heart racing, to understand _why_.

He'd just been — it'd been _peaceful_ until — he's riding away from that now, though, away from that memory, painful like an old broken bone, and he's safe now, and — but this isn't _his_ memory, is it? Safe from — from what? Who was the man reaching for?)

 

A low tone sounds, humming like a bronze bell distorted through speakers, and the light above the door blinks on. Prompto turns.

The door doesn't open. The light washes across Prompto's face, lit up in the window.

He thinks it's his reflection for a moment, but it couldn't be. Blue eyes rimmed with gold lashes — a young woman with a thin mouth, braids in her hair. Her gaze is piercing, and for a moment Prompto thinks she _sees him._

 

"Yes," she says. "I can."

 

Prompto raises a hand, startled.

He jerks his hand back just as the door slides open and takes her with it.

For a strange, woozy moment Prompto stares out into a void of smoke and the faint glint of metal, blades and distant gunfire. Nobody is stepping out — this could be his stop — but the woman, there was something he knew about her — something she _knew —_

The door slides shut, and it's not the woman who stares back at him now, and it's not Prompto's reflection.

It's _him_. The dream king.

The torrent of understanding comes like blood into a numb limb now, the sense of recognition is so strong that Prompto's knees nearly buckle. Here, here, he's here, this is a dream and it's _him._ They'll be fine now, not trapped, they can leave this place, go somewhere — somewhere closer —

But the king doesn't look like he's ready to leave.

He looks stricken. Prompto doesn't think he's ever seen him so _young._

He takes a step back at the same moment Prompto takes a step forward. "Hey," Prompto says. "Hey, don't go. Wait — "

The man hears something; he turns his head towards the back of the train, and Prompto's follows by instinct. Nothing. The reflection darts towards whatever it is, and Prompto, desperate to keep the familiar face in view, scrambles to follow, pushing aside shadow-strangers, cold metal against his palms, trying to catch a glimpse in the windows; he sees only the flash of stormclouds beyond, the crack of lightning and thunder and rain battering the tin, but no water, only blades, shards dripping blue, beating against the glass, beastly wings stretching and monstrous figures looming cold against the sky like mountains —

— he bursts through the door at the end of the compartment into the empty cargo area.

It's deserted, nothing but a rattling hull and beams and sawdust strewn all around. But there's sunlight streaming down from somewhere above towards the back of the compartment, weak warmth after the queasy artificial illumination of the underground, from behind the rack of empty crates that blocks him from view. Prompto inches forwards, hush falling as if the world holds its breath with him as he emerges.

There's an automobile there. Strapped down to the rusty floor, a lone shape in back of the hollow transport, black metal and glass gleaming like something alive. The wheels are turned away from Prompto, as if the car were a hulking beast straining to leap from its bonds, eager to hit the asphalt, the scent of burning rubber and fuel and sweet summer tar hot in the air already —

But there's nobody behind the wheel. Two figures in the back, that's all, and they don't see Prompto either.

A man with dark hair and skin like the sun is sitting on the right. He holds a book in one hand, hardback green cover, embossed in a language Prompto can't read. Another figure is sleeping with its head in the man's lap, face obscured. The man runs his hand gently through feathery hair, black, almost blue; he turns a page in his book in the wafting breeze. His fingers leave bloody spots on the paper.

The joints of the walls are threatening to crack and peel apart like paint all around them, transparent at the furthest points. The two figures in the car stay where they are, undisturbed in their still pool of sunshine. A feeling of shame rises in the back of Prompto throat.

_I shouldn't be seeing this._

He backs away, swallowing.

The voice that speaks up behind him is hoarse.

"I couldn't save them," it says, distant.

Prompto turns to see the king standing there, arms limp at his sides.

Prompto looks at him, really looks at him. His lashes are wet, mouth twisted, and he looks like — nothing like a god or a king, just — like another boy who's seen too much tragedy, who's had too much ripped away from him, who's got red-rimmed eyes like Prompto sees in the mirror sometimes when he's tired and wanting for home.

 _No wonder he spends all his time mucking through other people's dreams,_ Prompto thinks, _if this is all he's got in his own._

The king is close, close, eyes fixed with anguish just beyond Prompto's shoulder, and so Prompto does something that surprises even himself: he reaches out and twines their fingers together.

It doesn't feel like a phantom, or a corpse. The king's hand is cool to the touch, slightly calloused.

The world around them seems to fade out as they touch, flattening into pastels and ripples of light, though their hands seem to stay exactly as they were, contact solid and sharp. Real.

After a moment, the fingers curl around Prompto's in kind.

Prompto says, "Come on."

He tugs, and he doesn't know where they're going, but the king follows where he leads, and they leave the dark behind.

 

\-- 

 

He leads them onwards through the rocky grove, soft swaying trees on either side, warm spray on his skin, hushed chirping of birds and the scent of pine and apple. The sun fades abruptly, and the clouds above rumble, a light hiss of rain whispering through the tranquil valley; in a moment, the rain will stop, and the sun will re-emerge — the weather here seems to change without warning.

"Didn't... mean to do that," the king finally says quietly from behind him.

Prompto keeps his pace, steadily, gently, the king's fingers still wound trepidatiously in his.

There's puddles underfoot now, and the sound of water nearby, and of wind through leaves. The clouds are already clearing, the porous grey slate fomations around them absorbing raindrops like sand.

It's not his place, but Prompto hesitates and asks — "Who's _her?"_

Their steps land soft through the cooling mist, words alongside. He doesn't get a reply.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> \- [mushydesserts.tumblr.com](https://mushydesserts.tumblr.com/)


End file.
